Rot, Ruin and Collapse
by Ironbucket
Summary: When Oryx fell, the guardians thought they had bested all the darkness had to offer. But when a threat from the era before the golden age arises, they may not have the strength or numbers to face it. Can the guardians face the hoards of the shells, or will they walk among the dead forever?
1. Chapter 1

In the early grey light, among the shadows of the cosmodrome, a single sparrow flew between the cars, tanks and planes. It left a trail of smoke as it went, and on its flanks burned small patches of fire.

On its back rode a Hunter; one of the last Hunters left in the world.

Connor Oak leaned low over his sparrow, weaving between rusted skeletons of cars, trying to keep his mount stable. While he managed to stay upright, the flames spread further along the flank of the sparrow. "Oh, heck with this," he said gruffly. He turned the sparrow so it slid sideways then kicked off and used his jump boost to send himself flying forwards. The speeder rolled the opposite direction, flames spreading across its chassis. As Connor flew forward he turned midair and quick-fired his Rocket launcher. The glowing, purple projectile hit the sparrow and exploded in a blinding flash of white-purple light.

"That was your last rocket," a voice said over the comm.

"I know it was," Connor said, aiming his auto rifle through the smoke. He turned a knob on the scope, switching it to infrared vision. Through the smoke he saw several dozen shapes, all moving slowly towards him.

"You didn't even hit any of them," his ghost complained, appearing over his shoulder.

"I know I didn't," Connor spat, turning and sprinting away from the smoking crater that was once his favorite sparrow.

"Then why did you do it?" his ghost asked, barely keeping up with him.

"Because it'll slow them down. You know they move in a straight line when they chase, Jeffry," he snapped, leaping over what once was a minivan.

"I hate it when you call me that," the ghost, Jeffry, said hovering a few feet behind him. The two dashed across the remains of the cosmadrome, trying to stay ahead of the darkness behind them

Connor soon arrived at the evac zone he and the other guardians set up. They had set up inside an abandoned warehouse with an armored front. He ran down the hallway that was dimly lit with lanterns. At the end of the hallway he smashed his fist into a button. Behind them, dozens of trip mines activated, buying him much needed time.

At the back of the hallway was the warehouse itself, the ceiling having been blown out during The Collapse. Walkways spanned the square walls. In the center of the room, the debris cleared out. The space was large enough to land a Cabal dropship and have room to disgorge the troops within.

As he crossed the threshold he collapsed. Two full days of running, fighting and losing friends and allies had drained him beyond any normal Human's limit. He closed his eyes a moment, enjoying a moment's peace. Suddenly a shadow fell across his face. He looked up to see a Fallen captain, bearing the marks of the house of wolves pointing a scorch cannon right at him.

Breathing very slowly, Connor stood up. Connor was tall, but the Captain stood a head and shoulders above him. Without moving his head he glanced around the room more Fallen stepped out of the shadow or uncloaked, snipers on the walkways, Vandals with scrap guns and three Dregs. "Are you infected…?" it said cautiously, not lowering the cannon.

"No armor breach, no damage," Connor replied, keeping very still.

"The blast marks?" eyes still trained directly on Connor's face.

"He blew up his sparrow," his ghost said, glowering at him.

"A little bit," Connor conceded, with a shrug. Another Fallen, one of the snipers on the railing, questioned "Why did you do that? That won't slow them down at all."

"Can we drop the subject?" Connor snapped, waving the question away, "And while you're at it, lower the guns?"

Most of the Fallen lowered their guns, while some trained them on the entrance. The captain raised his lower right arm shake Connor's hand, a skill few Fallen master. "Were there no survivors?" the captain asked, leaning on the cannon, "And what about the package?"

Connor shook his head, "They were already gone," he replied sorrowfully, "But the package was there. It's onboard my ship. But…Arlak, there's an army of them out there. We don't have long."

"We have a skiff coming…but it is still fifteen minutes away. We will need to hold out until it arrives," Arlak responded, now hefting the Scorch cannon.

"The trip mines are up," Connor said, tilting his head to the side, deep in thought, "And when Thomas and Mira get back we should be able to hold out for at least an hour. Maybe more if the dumb ones stopped to go after my sparrow."

At this, he turned to his Ghost and glared daggers at it. He then returned to Arlak. "Speaking of, have they checked in yet?"

"They have been and gone," Arlak responded, "Another Pilgrim group was discovered and they went to secure it. This is why we wait for a skiff."

"Great," Jeffry complained, "Now we have to hold off the army of shells while waiting for a cramped skiff. Speaking of which…."

Back down the hallway, the sound of explosions rang clear, and the sounds of soft moaning. "The trip mines!" Connor shouted, readying his Auto Rifle. The rest of the Fallen pointed their weapons towards the entry.

"Skiff is fifteen minutes out," Jeffry said, "And we have limited ammo in here."

Connor laughed a little, as he always did in a fight, which unsettled his allies as much as his enemies, and replied, "Just another day at the office, then."


	2. Chapter 2

The next ten seconds were tense.

The Fallen around the room stood stock still, keeping their weapons trained on the entryway. Connor was among them, hunkered in the middle of the room next to Arlak, whose scorch cannon gleamed in the light.

Smoke from the trip mines filled the hallway, but they could hear movement and the soft moaning from the Shells down the hall. Breathing slowly he adjusted his scope slightly to compensate for the close range.

A shape shambled slowly out of the shadows. "Ready yourself!" One of the Fallen shouted. Out from the smoke and shadows shuffled Ikora Rey.

Her robes were soaked in blood, red and purple with rips in places where the shells had grabbed at her. Her legs were twisted at angles so she stumbled as she walked. Along her arms and face her skin was grey, with patches of purplish bruises. Her eyes were obsidian black with lines akin to black veins spreading out across her face.

With only a moment's hesitation, and a silent apology, Connor took his shot. He pulled the trigger on his Auto Rifle, and the thing that was once Ikora fell to the ground, several bullet holes trailing from her chest to her head. Behind her, dozens more shells shambled forward. Some of them were old; skin bleached and hair gone, while some of them still had some resemblance to their former self. Several fallen were among them as well, arms stretched forward or totally severed.

"Destroy them for the house of wolves and disgraced kin!" Arlak bellowed, letting loose a blast from his Scorch Cannon, turning the first wave of shells to ash. The other fallen opened fire, their blue projectiles lighting up the dark hallway. The scrap cannons did little and the Dregs hardly hit a thing, but the snipers made quick work of what got past the Shock rifles of the vandals and the combined fire of Connor's rifle, the "Will not bow", And Arlak's scorch cannon.

The battle seemed to go on for hours. The band of survivors kept up a stream of fire that kept them back, but soon ammo became a problem for Arlak and Connor.

"Three mags left!" Connor shouted, throwing a fiery orange grenade into the opening. It exploded with the force of a sun and burnt the shells within range to a crisp. The survivors of the blast slowly began to burn away.

"Skiff is inbound!" Jeffry exclaimed joyously, hovering much above the action.

The light in the room took on a blue glow as the Fallen skiff flew low, nearly landing to pick up the Fallen. Its frontal guns opened fire at the door, holding back the hoard.

"Thank God," Connor said, a smile blooming under his mask, "Jeffry, I do believe I owe several hunters rather substantial stacks of glimmer now."

"What would you bet on at a time like this?" Arlak Inquired, giving him a disbelieving look. Or at least, what Connor thought was a disbelieving look. With the mask on, he couldn't really tell what his face was doing.

"It's a long-standing bet. I had a rather closed mind towards aliens back in the day, and I bet them that I would never be glad to see a Fallen skiff."

The laugh that might have boomed forth from Arlak was quelled as a Dreg ran over and spoke to him in their native tongue. Arlak then shook his head and shouted at the dreg. It cowered and fled towards the skiff.

"There has been a problem."

"Not again," Connor complained, the smile fading, "Are the engines out again?"

"No," Arlak responded, hoisting his Cannon back to his shoulder, "The pilgrim group was larger than we expected. The other skiff is full, and Guardian Kira was left behind."

"Why?" Connor shouted, looking panicked. Kira was one of the hunters he had trained for the longest time. She was young, barely 18, and had been like a sister to him for years. She had been chosen as a hunter five years ago and at the time he had felt a rush of compassion towards the 14 year old, thrown into a world full of monsters and fear. "She was sharing Thomas' jumpship, wasn't she?"

"She was," Arlak confirmed, "But she had him take a mother and her child instead. She is holding at the top of a building, but the hive infected are near to her. They will overtake her soon."

"Damn it!" Connor spat, his mind instantly made up, "Go for her then."

Arlak looked at him in disbelief, "Guardian Connor, I cannot do that. You must return to the fleet and present the spark, otherwise Hideo will take over."

"You don't need me for that," he said, giving his old friend a hard look, "Sarna and Levi can handle themselves. Plus, Thomas, Kira and Dusk can support them. And…you'll have Rachel. She'll be the next Hunter Vanguard if I go down. Besides, I have an idea."

"Oh no," Jeffry said, with the dread of someone told that there was good news and bad news.

"What?" Connor questioned, looking at his Ghost.

"Your plans frequently bring you within arm's reach of death," Arlak commented matter-of-factly.

"Well I can stay here and die or I can go through with the plan and maybe not die."

"I will trust your judgment." Arlak said after a moment, then grabbed his cannon with two hands and presented it to him.

"That's a gift from the Kell; I can't take it from you." Connor responded, slightly taken aback.

"But you must. You will need it."

"Don't worry, old friend." Connor said with a sly smile playing across his face. Which no one could see under his helmet, but it was there, "I have a backup plan."

Arlak nodded shouldered the cannon again and ran for the Skiff. Once he boarded, he turned and raised two hands in farewell, and Connor raised his own in response. He then shouldered his rifle and turned to look down the hall. His right hand flashed with orange light, brighter than the sun that shone above. The light shifted and compacted into the shape of a Hand Cannon. All sense of humor was gone from Connor's face now, replaced by a steely calm.

"Jeffry, call the ship. We've got ground to cover."

He gripped the gun with both hands and aimed down the hallway. With a silent prayer for success, he fired once bolt down the hallway. The beam of fiery light that shone forth disintegrated all the Shells in the hallway. Wasting no time he dashed down, Golden gun in one hand and a charged grenade in the other. He fired twice more, clearing the shells out at the head of the warehouse. He shot out of the doorway and immediately jumped high into the air, using his jump boosters to scale the building. He looked out across the Cosmodrome to see a sea of Shells. Human, Fallen and Hive, none were safe from the Shells. Far to the back of the crowd he saw a tall figure. A Turned Kell.

"Can't run," he said to himself, "Can't hide, so it's time to fight."

The clearing between the buildings was large, where most guardians landed. The Shells came from the left and right, but the Cliffside was clear.

"Think we can make it over there, Jeff?" he asked his ghost, pulling his Rifle from his back once again.

"I know that no matter what I say you'll try it anyway," his ghost replied, but devoid of the annoyance that would have been there usually. Now there was defiance and fear.

"Glad we're on the same page," Connor said, and leapt forward into the sea of Shells.

This had been Connor's life had been since he had been chosen as a guardian. Death, running, anger, fighting.

He thought about this as he jumped, his life slowly flashing before his eyes.

 _The first jump carried him far forward, but the Shells took notice of him and their hungry, grey eyes followed him._

He had been born into a pilgrim group in what had been North America. They had settled in a remote cave in the mountains, safely hidden from the hive and the fallen.

 _His second leap sent him sailing towards a crashed guardian ship, but several Shells ran towards him. "Great." he thought as he descended, "Runners"_

It had been a hard life. From the age of ten he had been expected to work, either farming or helping hunt for food. Every day he focused on improving his strength and aim, every day another challenge. But his life got harder.

He set out during the winter he turned eighteen to hunt with two of his best friends. A week into it, however, one died from a sudden case of the flu, while the other had fallen into icy water. When Connor returned he had found their little homestead burnt to the ground. A group of fallen had come in, mere hours before, and leveled the little wood houses and farms.

 _As he landed, a runner leapt at him. He whipped out his knife and decapitated it. More of them began to clamber up, but he gunned them down, wasting no bullets. He leapt again, towards a nearby building._

His ghost found him then. He destroyed the fallen camp nearby and stole a Jumpship they had salvaged from somewhere in the collapse. When he returned and told his story, he joined the ranks of the hunters with a sense of pride. After a year of training he was strong and skilled enough to go solo, and spent a year or two hunting Fallen and Vex on Venus.

 _He barely made it to the building. One of the runners leapt up and grabbed onto his leg. It had been a human male who had once been well built. But once the plague took a hold of him his muscle meant nothing, rotting away till he resembled a skeleton. Connor used his free foot and knocked it free. He clambered to the top of the building and made a dash for the Cliffside._

A year before _the_ guardian, the one who killed Oryx, was finally found, little Kira became the youngest guardian to join them in the history of the collapse. He had been present when she was brought to the tower, her voice small and her eyes wide with terror. Zavala deemed her too young to be effective on her own and had been preparing to have her work as an aid. But she wanted none of it. The hive had taken her parents from her, and she wanted to be out in the field fighting them. But no hunter was willing to have her travel with them.

None, that is, except Connor. He saw a young version of himself in her, wanting to prove herself and at the same time being terrified of what lay beyond the city. He took her as his apprentice, though he referred to her as his 'hunting partner.'

She stayed with him during the fiasco with the Vex, the rise of the House of wolves and the Taken war. When the Shells began to take over, nearly two years earlier, He had gotten her and his friends and allies out of the tower and onto a freshly built Dead Orbit ship.

The two of them, as well as Sarna, an Awoken warlock who had joined him in quelling a hive push to take the rocket yard, Leviathan-0, an Exo who had joined the trio in taking down the House of Wolves presence on Venus, and Rachel Castaway, A hunter who he had befriended right after they got over their nearly obsessive need to outdo/kill each other, had fought their way out of the hellhole the tower had become only to find the last city burning and the rest of the world slowly falling.

All of Connor's memories with Friends and family, new and old, flashed by in the thirty seconds it took to reach the cliff. He turned and readied his gun.

"How long until the gunship gets here, Jeffry?" Connor asked, watching as the Shells closed in.

"A few minutes," he said, "Just hold out."

And hold out he did. His gun spewed death, slaying countless shells. When he ran out of ammo, he switched to his shotgun. "Running out ammo again, Jeff," he growled, lobbing another Grenade, "How long?"

"It's here!" his ghost shouted, calling attention to his ship. It wasn't unlike an old pre-traveler fighter jet. Army green, the same color as Jeffry's shell, the Pheaton v2.1 screamed in from orbit, giving Connor momentary hope. But in the same moment, a massive portal opened and disgorged a hive dropship. It opened fire on his Jumpship, causing the auto-pilot to avoid and evade, doing a roll and flying away. "No. NO!" Connor shouted as it flew away, "Ghost, get it back here!"

"I can't!" his ghost exclaimed, "The Dropship will blow it out of the sky."

"Can't you transmat me up?" He asked, grasping at straws.

"The dropship is tampering with our tracker. I can't lock on to you, but I could send something small down."

Connor's thoughts buzzed quickly through his head, firing his last two shells into the crowd of Shells. "Ghost, transmat yourself to the ship and drop off my spare shotgun ammo and my sword. I'll go down fighting; you get the spark back to the Fleet."

"But, you'll die!" Jeffry cried, "I won't let that happen."

"I'm one guardian," Connor snapped, "The spark is everything. Go!"

Jeffry hesitated, and then responded, "Goodbye, Guardian. It's been an honor."

"Likewise, Jeffry." he returned, his eyes on the oncoming wave of Shells, "Tell everyone I said goodbye. And make sure Kira gets my ship and…"

He faltered a moment, "Tell Rachel I'm sorry. For everything."

His ghosted transmatted up to the Jumpship, leaving behind a crate of ammo and a long, orange tinted sword with enough power to last him a good while.

He threw grenade to keep the Shells off him, reloaded his shotgun and hefted the sword. "Alright, you shuffling numpties!" He shouted, brandishing his sword, "Come and get me!"

The next two minutes were a blur of red vision and dead bodies. He cut down dozens with his blade, untouched by Shell or the blasts being rained down by the hive ship. When his sword eventually lost its charge, he switched again to his shotgun and blasted away, felling any Shell that stood near him. When that ran out, he knew he only had moments. He, like so many others, would fall to the Shells. He, like so many others, would lose his light and life to the darkness. And he, like so many others, would die alone.

But he wasn't alone. A single shell shuffled ahead of the rest. It used to be an awoken, its skin now grey-blue and covered in bite marks. It was covered with bit marks, and over one eye it wore an Eye patch.

"Petra..." Connor said, sorrow overtaking him.

Petra Venj and he had struck up an alliance before the start of the Taken war. In exchange for constant updates on the location of the House of Wolves, he was free to return to the reef to resupply and reload, no matter what. At first, the two hardly exchanged a word. But before long they started to swap stories about fights they had been in, weapon specs and even sparrow racing.

Soon it became regular: Connor would spend a week or two on Venus or The moon, then he, Kira and whoever else of his group had joined them would take a day in the reef while they refueled their ships, resupplied on food and ammo, and during this time he would help Petra plan raids on the Wolves, organize attacks on skiff groups or just chat about life.

To see his long-time friend reduced to this shambling, moaning monster broke his heart. "Not you too," He said, looking at the thing that had once been his friend, "Ikora said you had escaped…"

He stood still too long. The creature was almost upon him.

"I am truly sorry, old friend. I hope, wherever you are, you can forgive me." He took up his knife, hesitated, and then threw it. It buried itself hilt deep in the thing's forehead, dropping it instantly.

He then looked out behind Petra's corpse. The Shells had not thinned, and more swarmed from all over, drawn to him by the noise of his guns and the dropship. He was out of options, out of tools and out of tricks.

He stood his ground, letting them come close. He closed his eyes and cleared his thoughts. "My soul may be freed, but you will not take my body," he said. When the first of them were nearly in reach of him, he fell backwards and over the cliff. As he fell, he thought of only one thing.

"I failed them all." And with this thought, he readied himself to become one with oblivion.


	3. Chapter 3

The live ship drifted around the dark side of earth, its asymmetrical arms rotating slowly around the cylindrical center.

In one of the multiple arm of the station, there was a dim room lit only by the eyes of a Tall Exo and the glowing green stone held by Eris Morn. Leaning on frame for the massive bulkhead door was a young Awoken, Dusk Von, one of the last of his kind. His dark eyes scanned the spacely furnished quietly, listening to the ongoing argument. To his right, in a low chair was a well built Human, Thomas, with his ever present shotgun lying across his lap. On Thomas' other side sat Kira, a girl with hair a violent shade of red and eyes shockingly blue. She sat upside down in her chair, her cloak, gloves, the right arm of her body armor and boots were in a pile next to her, and she made slow, nervous circles in the air with one foot.

"I do not understand why we're not allowed to join in," Dusk said after a while, "We have been out in the ruin just as much as they have."

"Yeah, we have," Kira responded sullenly, "And not only did we screw everything up today, but we-"

"What do you mean we screwed it up?" Dusk interrupted angrily. "We rescued the civilians, you have not been infected and we were able to a shelled ogre."

"And in the process," Thomas commented grimly, "we may have lost the only chance we have at unity among us."

They all looked across the room to the long table which held the only real leadership the city had left.

Lord Shaxx sat on the far left end, pouring over a map of vex structures on Venus. Even now in a place of safety he kept is full armor on, which in the light of Eris' stone it seemed to glow with its own light. To the right of him sat Eris Morn, who muttered softly as she looked searchingly into her stone.

On the left of Shaxx there was an empty chair, usually occupied by Ikora Ray, whose fate remained a mystery. Next to Eris sat Rachel Castaway, with her long hair unbraided and its usual dyed blonde and black color was turned grey in the dim light. She was arguing animatedly with the awoken standing next to her, eyes alight with rage.

Sarna Ta'sov, sitting next to Rachel, was the model Awoken with a slender figure, piercing blue eyes and short-cropped blue-black hair. The only thing that marred this picture was the long, paper thin scar that ran from her right temple to her left jaw line, grazing her eye, noticeable only when she was angry or happy, and today it radiated.

Sitting in front of Sarna and beside Ikora's empty chair was Leviathan-0, his red Exo eye flitting between the two women as if he was watching an amusing tennis match.

At the head of the table was an empty chair. Connor's empty chair.

"He's not dead." Kira said simply, turning herself to sit upright, "He can't be dead."

"If he is," Thomas responded, his usual humor gone, "It's my fault."

Dusk stared at the floor and said nothing. Kira tried to put a reassuring hand on Thomas' shoulder, but he shook her off.

Kira hated seeing her best friend like this. He was usually the one who kept everyone else's spirits up in combat, but now his own spirit seemed to be broken. She felt nearly the same as him now, this ordeal reminding her of how she lost her family years before. Now it seemed that she would lose her brother as well.

Thomas felt like he had failed them when he had let Kira give up her seat on Thomas' Jumpship, leaving her to fend for herself and prompting Connor to send his own rescue ship to save her, leaving himself open to a hoard of shells.

And now Connor was missing, Hideo was planning to make a move for power and the mission had been a failure. All because of him.

Thomas stared out the window behind the table at the night side of earth, wondering, not for the first time, if he had died.

Because this seemed pretty close to hell.

The fall of the world had started two years prior.

With the threat or Oryx gone, the last city had nearly a month of quiet before the next threat put them down. For a week after the last substantial group of taken were destroyed the city broke into celebration. For days, even in the early hours of the morning, the sounds of revelry were present. This, in the end, turned out to be the thing that brought the city to its knees. 

Along with a team of twelve guardians, Zavala traveled into the bowls of the dreadnaught, looking to empty the prisons of the greatest threats. As it turned out, most of the job had been done for them as they found only the remains of monstrous creatures, beasts with no name and evils without shape.

The few things they faced were feebly weak from centuries of imprisonment and were put down with little fuss. It was when they were in the deepest dark that they found the worst threat.

Two doors were there. One held the corpse of some beast that seemed to be made of tentacles, eyes and teeth. But the eyes were glossy, the teeth chipped and the tentacles rotting. The other door was a single Thrall. It moved slowly and unsurely, tracking them slowly.

While they had killed the thrall with relative ease, it had bitten one of the warlocks before it died. They rushed the Warlocks out of the pits and back to the tower, as he became sick and weak. Within a day, the warlock was dead, but a few hours he rose again, undead.

The healers were overjoyed, thinking some miracle had taken place. As they tried to help them, he bit them and they turned within minutes, and began a chain reaction that ran throughout the tower, Civilians, unarmed as they were, fell by the dozens. Guardians who stayed to try and evacuate were overwhelmed by masses. Those who escaped rallied elsewhere to formulate a plan to rescue survivors.

The mindless infected were drawn to the noises of the city, which turned from revelrous singing and shouting to fearful cries and screaming. The civilians and small militia was overwhelmed within a day, and those who escaped to the tallest buildings starved during the next weeks or ended their own lives to escape the nightmare their world has become.

Zavala was killed in a last stand in the speaker's chamber, making sure that Cayde-6 and Ikora could escape with the speaker. The infected spread outside the city in ships meant to evacuate civilians. Within a month the world, no matter how broken, fell. The fallen and hive were infected as well, the shells finding them when they investigated the crashed evac ships. The hive spread it to the moon, the fallen to Venus.

When questioned later about how she felt putting down what was once her sister, on guardian said, "That wasn't my sister, it was a monster in the shell of her body. I'm fine."

Three months in and the only safe placed became Mars, The dreadnaught and Dead orbit's fleet.

Most of humanity lived in cobbled together space stations built by dead orbit and any other sentient life form willing to pitch in. No more than a thousand guardians were left, most of them being Exos, who were immune to the plague.

What was left of sentient life banded together to try and survive. The remaining fallen and awoken used their Ketches to supplement the fleet. They reclaimed several of the derelict ships from the cosmodrome and re-purpose them as space stations and cleared out farmland of Shells.

Humanity now lived in space more than on the ground. No hope, no way to go home and no way to move on, they lived in the twilight between worlds.

And with the fall of Ikora and the failure of her mission, hope is all but gone.

"Why are we even still discussing this?" Rachel fumed, "Connor's out there and we need to find him."

"But if we leave now," Sarna replied, cool edge creeping to her voice, "Hideo could take control of the fleet as little as an hour. We need to stay here and fight him on the political front."

"If we lose Connor there may not be a point to fighting Hideo at all," Shaxx commented, "We would lose the support of most of the civilians."

"But if we take that risk and do not find him, we may as well dig our own graves!" Sarna shouted, jumping up suddenly, "You have seen how he is! He is insane!"

The room became quiet as Sarna began to rant, "It has been hours since we heard from Connor, and Hideo is fully prepared to take control of the entire fleet and every person in it! If he gets his way he will try and take over the Vex mind, or try and experiment with the shells or something equally as ridiculous! If we do not stop him here we are all dead."

"What is your problem!?" Rachel shouted, standing up to face the awoken, "Connor would have come to help any of us if we needed it, why are you so opposed to doing the same for him?"

"I want to!" Sarna bellowed, her eyes turning the color of the sun as she let some of the solar energy she had pent up from days of doing nothing. "I want with every bone in my body to rescue him! He is the only reason I am not a disgraced no-name rotting somewhere on Venus! He is the reason any of us are alive right now! He is my friend, too!"

Save for the muttering of Eris Morn, who was unmoved by the shouting, there was silence

Sarna calmed herself after a moment with a deep sigh, and the glow faded from her eyes as she sat down. "Yes, he would come for us. He would not rest until he knew we were safe. But we cannot afford to be him right now. He is a brilliant leader and an excellent choice for a hunter, but he has no political sense. If we go looking for him and do not return, who would lead the city in our stead? Cayde is hardly involved in anything, Zavala is long since dead and we have to assume Ikora and the Speaker are gone as well. They need us here."

Rachel was quiet for a moment. She and Sarna both had been on leave for the past week due to the fact they had suffered burns escaping a supply post on Venus overrun with Shells and Vex. So when the mission came up, Connor made both of them stay behind to fully heal.

"I'm…I'm sorry," Rachel muttered softly, "It's just…I can't afford to lose another friend. Benjamin and Anita went missing first night. We've lost so many people these two years and…I couldn't live with myself if I knew he died on a mission I could easily have gone on."

She started to quietly cry. Rachel wasn't one for tears, but these past few months had weakened all of them emotionally. More often did they succumb to sorrow, anger and fear. Most of them hadn't truly laughed in a year.

"I understand." Sarna said. "Truly I do, but right now the best thing we can do is wait until after the meeting Hideo called. We can formulate a plan to find him after that."

"Hang on a minute!" Kira interrupted suddenly from behind them. She stormed over and stood behind Ikora's chair, placing both hands on its back and glaring at them all in turn. "You're not seriously leaving him behind, are you?"

No one answered her, so she pressed on, "You had better not. He's not dead, he's hurt and we _will_ find him."

"Kira," Rachel said gently, "I think we should too but…Sarna really is right. We should at least be here in case Hideo tries to stage a coup."

"Then you guys stay. Thomas and I can go out and find him." Kira snapped her eyes defiant. "The darkness took my first family away from me, I won't let them take my big brother now." She strode across the room to get her armor on, but as she bent over to reach for her boots she stumbled backwards, clutching at her right arm. The crisscross of cuts she earned from slamming into a chain link fence glistening slightly red.

Strangely, it was Leviathan-0 who stood to help her. He usually let the others sort themselves out, and had not spoken since he suggested they hold this very meeting, but he helped her up into the chair without hesitation. "That is why you cannot go," he said, his voice more rough and Synthesized than the other Exos.

He had never had a memory wipe before, so his manners and speech pattern were slow and deliberate. He had refused to be repainted as well, sticking with the faded silver, black and grey camouflage. "Connor will survive. He has been through worse experiences. We need to stay here and make sure that he has a home to come back to."

He stood and looked over to the door as it opened for a cluster of ghosts. Every shape and size, they returned to their respective owners: A bright green one floated calmly over to Sarna, a Dark red one with spikes to Levi, a Pink-and-black one to Rachel, A silver one to Shaxx, A pure white one to Dusk, a Yellow one to Thomas and an Orange-and-blue one to Kira.

Leviathan-0's Ghost spoke quietly to him for a moment, then Leviathan turned and announced, "Hideo has just sent a red-alert to the fleet and locked down the ship."

"And how did he manage to get that past us?" Shaxx demanded, slamming his fist on the table.

"He put the request through the medical staff. They believe that Kira is infected and we are monitoring her."

"I can run and settle that," Dusk said, looking hopeful for something to do.

"Doubtful. The order to lift the lockdown will take hours to go through. And we have but an hour before the meeting."

He looked to Kira again, "The best thing we can do now is make sure Hideo doesn't get his way. We sit through the meeting and play our part."

Then an edge came into his voice and his eyes seemed to glow brighter, "But you can be sure, no matter which way this meeting goes, I will look for him. And Heaven help anyone who stands in my way."

The room was shocked into silence for a moment. Then Kira smiled brightly and said, "I'll come with you. I know the area of the cosmodrome well."

Levi nodded slowly, as if she had impressed him with an answer to a hard question, and said to the others, "And I will expect the rest of you to come with me."

There was a murmur of consent among the group. But before they could continue, Eris Morn spoke for the first time since it was announced Connor was missing.

"We may not need to," she announced, her green eyes looking to each person, "I have searched the darkness and heard the screams of many dead, but his voice is not among them."

No one spoke. Few people breathed.

"He is alive," She continued, "and he is angry."

Shaxx, after a moment of shocked awe, stood up and began to issue orders, "Leviathan, Dusk, get Cayde awake before the meeting. We need him _now_."

The group began to busy themselves with their preparations. If all had gone well, Connor held the one thing that could save them all.

"God speed, my friend," she heard Sarna say.

She smiled a little bit. Maybe there was hope after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Kira sat sullenly at the round council table, listening to another pointless speech given by Executor Hideo.

Usually the council met somewhere quiet in _Bright horizon,_ the massive station where most of the Sol system's inhabitants now lived. This time, however, they met in the plaza in front of the main tram station, the main access to the rest of the station

The station itself looked like a sideways jack, with a large cylinder, covered in windows with four, shorter cylinders sticking out from equal distances on the stations equator. Kira's head snapped up when the large crowd meeting in front of the plaza began to clap, marking the end of Hideo's speech. Hideo sat among his aids, smiling smugly. Shaxx then stood, prepared to counter the head of new monarchy's usual speech about the time being ripe for power to change hands or some such nonsense.

Kira grew bored with the pointless politics and looked around the table. Shaxx and Eris sat near the head, with Levi and Sarna sitting next to them, the latter two representing the Titans and Warlocks. Rachel sat next to Kira, filling in for the absent Connor. Across the table sat the four heads of wings, Hideo and his two aids. Kira wouldn't usually be allowed to stay, but she had taken part in the mission and Arlak had glared menacingly at the others until it was allowed. But she knew that the real reason she was there was that she was why the mission failed in the first palace. Arlak, speaking for the awoken and fallen, had given up his seat and chose instead to stand next to where Cayde-6 sat, which was a sad sight. The former Hunter Vanguard's face was melted on right side, his face lights dim and his horn broken. He had been this way since second collapse, and while he wasn't dead he rarely spoke and never joined in the council's meetings, but simply listened.

Again she was brought out of her thoughts when the topic shifted to the matter at hand. "As many of you know, the speaker said he had a vision," the old crucible master said, addressing the crowd as well as the council.

"He believes that the Traveler had something that could help should I fight the shells.

"He and Ikora Rey took a team of guardians and went back to the tower to find this gift. Once there, they fought their way into the tower, past shells and Cabal trying to take the tower."

"Crazy turtles…" Rachel muttered, tightening her grip on the edge of the table. "For a long time, we had no contact with them, regaining it only when they were halfway to their Fallen escorts in the cosmodrome. We dispatched Connor Oak and a team of his selection to recover them. Here to give a full report is Sarna Ta'sov."

The awoken woman stood, her face tired but determined. Connor had cleared her name when she was accused of treason and his disappearance hurt her greatly.

"Our team landed near the crash site, splitting up to cover more ground. Thomas, Kira and I went to divert the Shells and surviving hive. Connor arrived, recovered the package and transmatted it onto his ship."

"However... Before we could complete our extraction, a nomad group we thought lost sent a distress call to us, and we went to assist. Kira stayed behind to save a pregnant woman, and was besieged soon after by shelled Hive. Connor sent his extraction ship to rescue her, and we lost contact soon after."

"Why couldn't he just take his ship?" One of the wing heads inquired.

"The hive controlled most of the air. The fallen skiffs were armored enough to survive, but our own jumpships would not be able to," Sarna responded.

Hideo scoffed, "And why did he not take the skiff and rescue her?"

Arlak stepped forward, "Because I would have been honor bound to return the package, and he to save his friend. It would have ended with bloodshed. It was the only way to peacefully end the debate."

"And the speaker? Ikora? What of them?" A different wing head inquired.

Sarna looked down before answering, "Both dead, as were their escorts. All shelled, all eliminated."

Hideo stood and spread his arms, "You see? The Guardians tell us they have a plan, then they come back empty handed and with a few less fingers!"

The crowd began to voice its agreement as he continued, "Now is the time for change! The speaker is gone, the Traveler is dead, the vanguard broken and we cannot trust the guardians!"

Now the crowd shouted and cheered, "Now is the time for a new leader! Now is the time for a new leader! And if it must be me, I will shoulder this burden with pride!"

As the crowd went wild and Sarna sat, shocked beyond belief, Kira put her head in her hands and wept. The only thing she could think was, "Connor, we need you. Where are you?"

:: _ **Hours earlier**_ ::

Connor Oak did not face oblivion. Instead, he faced a chair face-first.

He gave a muffled grunt of surprised, and then began to move himself upright. After several minutes of swearing and several bumps he was upright. He found himself inside the slightly cramped and dark cockpit of his Phaeton jumpship. The viewport was closed, and practically every warning light was on.

"Uh…" Connor said, confused at the multitude of lights.

His Ghost answered by opening the viewport, showing that the sky was now full of Hive dropships, blocking all escape. They were also flying straight at a building.

"Oh crap." Connor said grabbing the controls and sending his ship into an evasive roll-away from the building.

"Explain." He spit out as he began to juke left and right to avoid the incoming energy blasts.

"I piloted the ship under you, using the cliff as cover, just out of danger," his ghost responded, proudly.

"Until you flew us straight at them," Connor grunted, putting his ship through a complicated zigzag, burst-firing the dual machine guns to try and clear a path to the upper-atmosphere.

"Until we flew straight at them," Jeffry confirmed, hovering just to the right of Connor's head.

Connor grumbled some choice words as he continued to shoot his way out of yet another problem. As he continued to evade the lasers of the hive with varying degrees of success, he scanned the sky for a weak link in their formation. Before long he had spotted one, five dropships that were slightly further apart than the rest.  
"Jeff, did they manage to load my babies?" Connor inquired, pulling back to give himself a head-start.

"I delayed us until I could confirm," His Ghost responded quickly.

Connor's 'babies' were prototype rockets, the size of lighter variety but with a yield much higher. A mix of highly-explosive, incendiary fragmentation - the only thing they wouldn't destroy was Shaxx's will.

Connor thumbed his flight stick over to the missile pods and lined up his shot. Within a few seconds, the shrill lock-on warning sounded and he gave his finger a quick twitch, sending a rocket flying. The little projectile flew at the lead dropship, leaving a multicolored trail behind it. When it collided with its target, it lit up the dusky sky, annihilating the five aircrafts entirely and throwing the ones around it away violently. Connor's eyes grew wide as he flew through the fireball, Jeffry screaming the entire time. His ship's alarms began to wail, signaling his shields weakening, and then failing completely.

"Jeff?" Connor called a few minutes later, when they were entering orbit and his ears had stopped ringing.

"Dial back on the explosives?"

"Nah," Connor responded, grinning brightly. "I was going to say I think we nailed it this time."

Jeffrey heaved a sigh as Connor directed them into high orbit, whistling an old tune, off-key.

"So, what exactly did I nearly die for?" Connor asked, setting the autopilot back to Brave Horizon. He turned his chair 180 degrees to look at his ever-important cargo.

As with many guardians, he had retrofitted his ship to have the cargo hold behind him instead of below him, so he could fit an extra guardian or have ease of access.

"I can't tell," Jeffry began, hovering over the box behind him, "The speaker said this was a gift to help save us. It has quite a lot of power, but I can't figure out how we can open it, if we can at all."

The silvery-white box was not unlike one found in the cosmodrome, but it was completely smooth, except for a round, clear crystal plate embedded in the lid.

"We lost a lot of good people for this stupid thing - no way I'll let this be until we get back," Connor muttered, probing the surface of the box.

"I'm really not sure that's a good idea, it may be a battery of-"

He missed the rest of what his Ghost was saying. He was blinded by a light so pure that it filled every corner of the cockpit and every inch of his mind.

When he could see again, he gasped. He stood atop the tower, in the Plaza where most Guardians transmatted in. But it looked different than in his early days and how it's looked in the pictures taken by the scouts during the second collapse.

The air around him was tinged with gold, like when summer gave way to autumn, and the traveler was whole, not covered by the scars of darkness. Impossibly, he heard music coming from the city below, and happy voices echoed through the air. He looked out and saw that the city was covered with rust-red and gold banners, and there seemed to be some kind of festival going on across the entire city.

"Discovery day," he muttered, remembering the day the Golden age humans took to celebrate the discovery of the Traveler.

Suddenly, a voice echoed through his mind, sounding older than time itself. "These are the days of my Traveler's gift. Use it, and bring back the golden age."

He blinked once, and found himself in the cockpit and in a large amount of pain, with Jeffry shouting his name.

"Connor! Wake _up_!"

Suddenly, white-hot pain shot up his arm, causing him to cry out.

"Thank goodness!" His Ghost exclaimed with relief.

"Seriously, you knew I was alive!" Connor shouted. "You know better than to try and resurrect me when I'm alive!" He pulled his sleeve back, getting ready to try and sooth the red scars that he knew would be there. But there were none. In fact, his arm was entirely free of damage, and now that the pain was gone, he felt a buzzing sensation all over his body, not unlike when he was supercharged. Then he started glowing.

"You're glowing!" Jeffry shouted, floating backwards in surprise.

"Gee, am I?" Connor said sarcastically. "I might never have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out."

"You're welcome," Jeffrey said, then began to scan him.

"How long was I out?" Connor inquired unhappily as he watched his ghost.

"An hour or so," the little sphere replied, finishing his scan. "We're nearly home. And… It seems you're charged with the same energy as the box."

Connor looked from his Ghost to the box, then back again. He looked upwards, then muttered, "I understand."

Then he started to reload his guns, strapping his hand cannon to his side and leaning his auto rifle and shotgun next to the chair.

"Jeffrey, ready the weapon systems and activate the stealth drive."

"What? Why?"

"Because," Connor replied, turning his chair back around. "Hideo will want us out, and we don't have time to do this slowly. I will not let that power-hungry sonovahusk stop me."

Jeffrey obeyed, and Connor began to prepare himself for a rough time, saying a quick prayer and focusing himself. "We're carrying more than a weapon," He added quietly. "We're carrying hope."


End file.
